


Nightmares

by Luxe3710



Series: ReverseTale [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, RBAU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luxe3710/pseuds/Luxe3710
Summary: Papyrus confronts his brother about some less than pleasant nightmares.





	

Papyrus stood in the kitchen, listlessly stirring the pot. Undyne would be appalled at his lack of passion while cooking, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that right now. After the disaster that had happened this morning, he was fully focused on not repeating the same mistakes again. Such as yelling at his brother. And not giving Sans a chance to respond. Probably the worst one was failing to even tell Sans about the nightmares.

  
He was just pouring the sauce on the plate of spaghetti when his brother finally walked in. He walked over to the table, setting the plate on the table and sitting down in another chair.

  
Sans gave the taller skeleton a questioning look. “None for you?”

  
“No, it’s apology spaghetti,” Papyrus responded, sitting there playing with his hands nervously.

  
“Ah.” Sans walked over and sat down “Where’s Frisk?”

  
“They’re staying over with Undyne and Alphys.”

  
“Oh.” Sans started eating the pasta, a little faster than usual. “This is pastably your best batch yet.”

  
A slight edge cut into Papyrus’ voice. “Sans, you don’t need to spare my feelings, I know this batch is terrible.”

  
“Nah no need to get saucy bro. I’m serious, it’s good pasta.”

  
“You don’t need to lie to me about that.”

  
“I’m not lying!” The room was silent as the brothers stared at each other. “Ya can’t even trust me about pasta anymore, huh.”

  
“I’m sorry. So much for apology spaghetti.” Why was this so hard? Every time he spoke to Sans he ended up picking a fight over the stupidest things. Maybe it had been a mistake to try this again so soon. How much longer

  
“Papyrus... what’s wrong.” Papyrus looked up to see the small skeleton worriedly staring at him.

  
“Sans I…” He had to get to the point. “Sans, did something happen to me the day the barrier fell?

  
“Nothing you need to worry about.”

  
“Sans, I, ugh.” He had to stay civil about it this time. “Sans whatever happened there clearly concerns The Great Papyrus.”

  
“Look, it’s over now. There’s no need for you to worry about it.”

  
“I can’t just ignore it.”

  
“Why not?”

  
What should he say? He couldn’t just tell his brother the awful truth. Sans would hate him. He hated it about himself. But he’d promised he would talk about it. After all, how could he ask Sans to be honest if he wasn’t. He finally spoke, barely a whisper, “Because I think I may have actually killed someone possibly.”

  
Papyrus refused to even glance up and see the look on his brother’s.face at that statement. He didn’t want to know what Sans thought of him now.

  
“Paps… why would you… I mean no one died that day. What would even make you think that.”

  
“The nightmares.” When Sans didn’t respond he continued, finding the words he’d been holding back spilling out of his mouth. “They started nearly three weeks ago, right after the barrier fell. I’ve, well I’ve barely been sleeping. I’ve been keeping busy at every possible moment, trying to stay awake. Every night, I find myself pacing through Hotland past all the lava flows and steam vents and everything else. I feel really strange, as though my body isn’t quite right. Maybe I’m shorter? I don’t know. But I am chasing, tracking something, someone. I don’t know who, all I know is when I find them I…” Papyrus stopped suddenly, choking back tears. He realized a pair of bony arms were wrapped around him as he heard his brother’s voice.

  
“I’m so sorry, bro.” Sans stood there with his head rested on his brother’s shoulder. “But I promise, you didn’t kill anyone. And you know how I feel about promises.”

  
“But they seem so real…” Papyrus turned his head to stare his brother in the eyes. “I’m absolutely certain they’re something that actually happened.”

  
“Papyrus, please let it go,” Sans softly pled, “It’s not something you want to know about. Nothing good will come of this.”

  
“I tried ignoring it already, I really did!” Papyrus said, standing up to face his brother. “But now I can’t sleep and get upset and angry far too easily, and I don’t know what to do!”

  
Sans stared at him for a moment before walking back to his seat. “You’re gonna want to sit down for this.”

  
Sans slowly continued as Papyrus sat. “It’s about Dad… He created us in his lab.”

  
“I am well aware of that fact. Why would you think I didn’t know that?”

  
“Bro, I wasn’t finished.”

  
“Oh. Sorry.” Papyrus found himself nervously folding the napkin over and over again. Why did he have to keep making a mess of things.

  
“What you don’t know, is why.”

  
“He was experimenting with artificial souls.” Papyrus quickly replied. He’d heard this enough times from Dad before he died.

  
“That’s true, but there’s more to it then that.” Sans took a deep breath. “When he passed, I found all his notes on us.”

  
Papyrus narrowed his eye sockets at his brother. “You said no one could find those.”

  
“Uh yeah… sorry about that. I had to keep them secret though. No one else would understand. He had designed us to be…”

  
“What?”

  
“Weapons.”

  
“He wouldn’t do that!”

  
“It’s true, I was designed to be able to stop any human that attacked us. And we both know how that worked out.” So that’s why Sans had been able to save everyone? But even still, he wanted to be a warrior, not a weapon.

  
“What was I supposed to be?”

  
“That’s not important. The point is-”

  
Papyrus cut him off. “Please don’t. I want to know.” The sad look on Sans’ face almost made him regret asking.

  
“You were supposed to be able to hunt down and kill any human that ran away.”

  
That was awful, it wasn’t honest combat at all! “I would never-”

  
“I think that’s why he abandoned the project.”

  
“What do you mean abandoned?”

  
“He gave up on the project, with both of us. I think he realized we would never approve. The last entry into his notes was over three years before he died.”

  
The brothers sat there in silence, Sans pushing around the pasta on his plate, and Papyrus folding designs into the napkin.

  
Papyrus finally dared to break the silence. “So does that mean I was hunting Frisk?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
“Because of what Flowey injected me with.”

  
“Yeah.”

  
“Do you know what that was?.”

  
“There was almost certainly some DT involved, probably less than five percent of the mixture. There could have possibly been any of the other traits mixed in too. Probably a natural magic inhibitor of some sort given your lack of natural abilities, and definitely a concentrated magic booster for the energy required. Oh, and there had to be something in there that acted as a catalyzing agent, though who knows what that could be.”

  
“What exactly does all that mean?”

  
“Something from Dad’s lab probably.”

  
“You mean Alphys’ lab?” Dad’s lab had been taken apart years ago.

  
“No, she wouldn’t have a reason to have made something like that. It was probably one of Dad’s leftovers that had been put in storage.”

  
“One of? There are more?” So he had to worry about it happening again, great.

  
“I don’t think so, I scoured the labs and there doesn’t seem to be any more there.”

  
“Well Flowey could have taken it. He just has to inject me again to turn me back into a heartless killer.”

  
“That’s not- I mean… It’s more of a beast okay.”

  
“Sans, what are you talking about.”

  
“When you were injected, you transformed into a blaster.”

  
With a soft pop, Papyrus’ sole blaster appeared over the table. “You’re telling me I turned into that goofy floating skull.”

  
“No, you still had a body, like a giant dog almost. Hold on a second.” Sans stood up and started walking out of the room. Papyrus quickly went after him, but his brother disappeared when as soon as he was out of sight like usual. Where in the world did he take off to this time. Before he even had time to turn around he heard his brother’s voice from the kitchen.

  
“Here take a look at this.”

  
Papyrus walked back to the table to see his brother was unfurling a large blueprint. Although it was white not blue so shouldn’t it be called a whiteprint? Papyrus’ focus was drawn back to the page when he saw what was on it, a large skeletal dog. Just as his brother had said, the head matched his blaster exactly.

  
“So this is what I turn into?” He stared at the page, running his finger along all the bones. “How did you stop me.”

  
“Asgore had a command to turn you back, once we dragged him out of the ruins. Uh, bro, you okay.”

  
He looked down to see he had torn the napkin he had been playing with to shreds. “Ugh, don’t worry, I’ll clean it up.”

  
“Wasn’t worried about that. Are you okay?”

  
Papyrus really wanted to say yes but he couldn’t lie… “No. I can’t tell when people are lying to me. I used to, well, I always knew you hid things from me, but maybe you were right to. It’s just, a few weeks ago I felt so confident in what I was doing and now I’m second guessing everything everyone says to me because everyone seems to need to protect me because I’m useless on my own.”

  
“You aren’t useless, you’re so important to me, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  
“You managed before.”

  
“No I didn’t. Even when we weren’t living together, you were still there supporting me as much as possible.”

  
“I seem to remember you showing up out of the blue to surprise me the majority of the time.”

  
“Eh, I just knew a few shortcuts.”

  
Taking a breath, Papyrus , “Maybe I will be okay though.”

  
“I know you’ll make it through, even if it’s been a dog’s life for you.”

  
“Sans, really, now?”

  
“Besides, with how little sleep you’ve been getting you must be bone tired.”

  
“SANS!”

  
“I can’t paws now that I have a whole new topic to make puns about.”

  
“More puns, I swear this is the worst day of my life!.”

  
“I suppose it’s time to for me to finish this spaghetti.”

  
“Oh my god Sans, that pasta has to be as cold as ice by now.”

  
“Yeah, but for the record, the pasta was doggone good.”

  
“At least let me put it in the microwave.”

  
“Nah, too much effort. Hey bro.”

  
“What?”

  
“Love you.”

  
“Love you too Sans.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't actually expect this to make sense to anyone who reads this, but I'm also not up to starting another 70 chapter fic to provide context so...


End file.
